Chapter 189: Chapter 121: Taking the Fall and Saying Thank You

"We really owe Mr. Li Wei for this one. Otherwise, we might have had to clash with the Gambino Family again."

After Frank left with Luca, Li Wei looked at Lady Delores and said, "I’d like to ask a question."

"Please, go ahead," Lady Delores said. "I’ll answer anything I can."

"You just told me I was ’one of us,’" Li Wei said after a moment of thought. "Did you want Mr. Sergey to know about this as well?"

"That was indeed my original intention," Lady Delores said, a faint smile on her lips. "We’re currently handling a large sum of money for Mr. Sergey. If we went to war with the Gambino Family again, his money could be affected. To avoid any potential misunderstandings, I took the liberty of keeping you here. My apologies."

’Well, I got my attribute points anyway,’ Li Wei thought.

’Besides, trading a piece of information I had no use for to get on Lady Delores’s good side didn’t seem like a bad deal.’

"Compared to that, I’m more curious about something else," Li Wei said. "What started this conflict in the first place?"

"You heard just now," Lady Delores said, glancing at Emma. "It was over a shipment of diamonds from Eastern Europe. They were being smuggled into New York when, by chance, they were intercepted by members of the Gambino Family."

"And then?" Li Wei asked curiously. "Is that what led to the gang war?"

"Those were big diamonds, worth over ten million USD!" Emma interjected. "Not little chips. They must have kept them for themselves."

"They claimed one of their family members defected after getting the diamonds, and now the jewels are lost," Lady Delores said, taking a slow sip of her hard liquor. "They couldn’t produce the diamonds and weren’t willing to compensate us, so we hacked their construction company’s system. We also had some friends at the Queens police department look into them a little. But that was all last fall."

It was only then that Li Wei remembered. Everything seemed to be falling into place.

He and Don Quixote had taken a cab to a construction site in the middle of the night (Chapter 18), only to find the road blocked by police. They had to walk to the site, where the system had been hacked, preventing wages from being paid (Chapter 30). Li Wei had then persuaded Leto to pay everyone.

"And then came the larger-scale conflicts," Lady Delores recalled. "I’ve been dealing with the Gambino Family for a long time. I knew they would retaliate, so I rarely stayed at the shop. I was constantly traveling between Brighton Beach and Moscow. The last time I came back was because Miss Elizabeth Mellon was visiting, so I made time for the trip. But unexpectedly, my movements were leaked. The Gambino Family took advantage of my absence to attack a Russian souvenir shop in Brighton." (Chapter 42)

Li Wei nodded. Brighton Beach is a Russian-inhabited area in southern Brooklyn.

"The Russian Mafia over in Brighton couldn’t contain their anger; even I couldn’t control them," Lady Delores said, rubbing her temples. "Later, a group of young guys went and trashed the Gambino Family’s construction site in Queens and even injured some people—they’d gotten a tip from somewhere that there was a casino there." (Chapter 66)

Li Wei thought about when Wang Qiang’s leg was broken. If he remembered correctly, Wang Qiang had been watching the construction site at night.

"But," Lady Delores’s expression suddenly turned strange, "overnight, something happened. They abruptly abandoned that entire line of operations and pulled back very quickly."

"Yeah," Emma chimed in. "It was really weird. I asked around later, but no one could clearly say what happened. It seems they had another traitor who lost their ledgers."

"Too much of a coincidence. I don’t buy it," Lady Delores said calmly. "How could the Gambino Family produce so many traitors so easily?"

"Yeah, so weird," Li Wei said, rubbing his nose in agreement.

"At first, I thought it was a trap, until I got confirmation from inside their organization—they really were pulling back," Lady Delores continued. "I just took over some of the things they left vacant."

"Except for drugs," Emma said with a grin. "That’s work for the Italians and Latin Americans. We generally only handle ’financial services’ targeting the United States of America and Europe. Otherwise, Mayor Holmes wouldn’t be coming to us."

Listening to Lady Delores’s account, Li Wei gradually pieced together the full picture.

"It all started with diamonds," he remarked. "I can’t imagine what kind of diamonds would be worth two major Mafia organizations spending so much time and effort on."

When he said this, both Lady Delores and Emma couldn’t help but glance at him.

From their perspective, Li Wei was just an athlete who had recently entered the world of fame and fortune. At best, he was lucky enough to be dating the daughter of the super-oligarch Sergey, but he hadn’t yet experienced any real storms.

She had been on good terms with Li Wei before, but only because he was a good client.

They hadn’t expected that after learning about all this today, he could remain completely unfazed, showing no fear. These were two of the most infamous and notorious Mafia organizations in the world.

This kind of courage earned a sliver of admiration even from someone like Lady Delores, who had lived through the Soviet Union era and weathered countless storms.

"Yeah, I don’t know either," Emma said dejectedly. "They say it was a huge diamond, dozens of carats. Very rare. It had just arrived in New York, and it disappeared before I even got to see it."

"You weren’t here just now," Lady Delores said calmly. "From the way Frank was talking, it seems he suspects we were behind it."

"What!" Emma exploded. "Suka Bulie! Are they never going to let this go?"

"He just said the matter was closed," Li Wei said, looking at Lady Delores’s seemingly unflappable face. "Will they still cause trouble for you over this?"

Based on the words of Frank, the Gambino Family’s underboss, it seemed that Lady Delores and the Russian Mafia from Brighton Beach had taken the fall for Li Wei. It was highly likely they believed the Russians were responsible for the lost ledgers.

Li Wei had to assess if there would be any follow-up to this matter. If the Italians continued to investigate along this line, it wouldn’t necessarily cause trouble for him, but it might threaten Don Quixote and Lily.

"It should be over now, and we have you to thank for the information," Lady Delores said, shaking her head. "It’s all a muddled affair. The tip you provided will probably let them make a killing on the betting odds. But are you sure you’re going to the NFL?"

After saying this, her expression shifted slightly, and she actually looked at Li Wei with a hint of nervousness.

"Do you want to see my contract?" Li Wei asked with a laugh. "Besides, if I weren’t joining the NFL, would someone like Elizabeth Mellon—or Yoya, for that matter—invite me to a dinner of this caliber?"

Lady Delores thought about it, realized he had a point, and her expression relaxed.

"Mr. Li Wei, your information helped us avoid a serious conflict this time. I will remember this," she said. "If you ever need our help, don’t hesitate to ask."

At that moment, however, Li Wei couldn’t think of anything he needed Lady Delores’s help with.

He was the one who had stirred the muddy waters between the two Mafia organizations in the first place, further escalating their existing conflict.

He had stepped in to mediate, gained his attribute points, and not only made the Italian Mafia take the blame but also made the other side owe him a favor. At this point, no matter how thick-skinned he was, he couldn’t bring himself to ask Lady Delores for help.

"Let’s discuss it again once I officially join the team and start the new season," he said. "It’d be great if you could help me pay less in taxes."

"But of course," Lady Delores said elegantly. "Mr. Li Wei’s problems are our problems."

Dinner was about to begin. The cocktail party was over, and Li Wei had to head back.

’Lady Delores really isn’t like a typical Russian,’ he thought. ’She seems completely different from the bold and unrestrained Russians of his imagination.’

His thoughts drifted to Don Quixote. He wondered how things were going between Uncle Don Quixote and Aunt Susan lately; it felt like a long time since he’d checked in...

Anya, on the other hand, perfectly matched his fantasy of a "Mao Mei." What he particularly liked was that Anya seemed to care a lot about her appearance. Not only was her entire body smooth, but it also seemed she’d had some kind of surgery before, as she didn’t have that typical Caucasian body odor. Miss Mellon seemed to be the same...

"What are you thinking about?" Elizabeth asked, unable to resist, as she watched Li Wei stare at the empty plate in front of him. "You’re so lost in thought."

"I was wondering if you’ve had surgery to remove your underarm sweat glands," Li Wei said casually, then immediately looked up. "Sorry, I didn’t mean... I..."

"I... I’ve just never had them, since I was a child. But a lot of my friends have had similar procedures," Elizabeth said, taking a deep breath and waving her hand, yet still speaking openly. "It’s no secret. A lot of people do it. The more middle class and up you are, the more you pay attention to these things. It’s just that health insurance doesn’t cover the surgery, so most ordinary people prefer to use antiperspirant."

"Sorry..." she apologized immediately after finishing. "I probably shouldn’t be talking about this while we’re eating."

Li Wei didn’t really mind. In fact, he was starting to feel that Elizabeth’s prim-and-proper demeanor wasn’t entirely her own choice.

The two made small talk for a few more moments, and then the dinner formally began.

The dinner was a high-class affair. The dishes looked exquisite and tasted decent, but the portions were tiny.

Li Wei got hungry very easily these days, and under the circumstances, he couldn’t exactly ask the waiter to bring him another pot of staple food.

Finishing the small portions only whetted his appetite, leaving him so hungry his stomach felt like it was touching his spine.

On top of that, they were at a front-row table. Elizabeth Mellon had led him straight into the lion’s den; the people around them were either CEOs of major banks or the vice-chair of this foundation’s board of directors.

Although Li Wei didn’t know much about this world of fame and fortune, when he saw that Frank Russo, the second-in-command of the Italian Gambino Family, and Lady Delores could only sit at a second-row table, and that Julian, a partner at JPMorgan Chase, was relegated to the second-to-last row, he instantly understood the caliber of the people in the front row.

However, the meal was free of any cliché face-slapping drama. On the contrary, although these people were older, each one seemed kinder and more polite than the last.

After dinner, Li Wei and Elizabeth had no other plans, so they got back into the Rolls-Royce. The car first dropped Mellon off at a luxury apartment building near Fifth Avenue.

"I thought you’d be living in some mansion on the Upper East Side," Li Wei commented idly. "The kind where you drive through cast-iron gates and it’s another ten-minute drive before you even see the main house."

"This is New York," Elizabeth said with a faint smile. "Even if I lived in Central Park, I don’t think I could have a ten-minute driveway to the main house, could I?"

"But if you ever come to Pennsylvania," she said after a moment’s thought, "perhaps I’ll have the chance to invite you over as a guest."

Li Wei was a little surprised. "I was just making a casual remark. You’re serious?"

"My family has a private club out there—that’s what it’s called in name," Elizabeth said as she got out of the car. "But it’s actually the old family estate."

"The kind where you have to drive for ten minutes just to see the main house?" Li Wei asked jokingly.

"More than that," Elizabeth said with a smile after thinking for a moment. "It’s probably around seventy or eighty thousand acres, I think. I don’t remember clearly, I don’t go back often. But I don’t think you could get there in ten minutes."